


Game Over

by allthelouvre



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Awkward Niall, Flirty Louis, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-26
Updated: 2016-08-26
Packaged: 2018-08-11 04:08:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7875589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthelouvre/pseuds/allthelouvre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A high school au where Niall spends his summer at the arcade and Louis works behind the prize counter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Game Over

**Author's Note:**

>  
> 
>   
> 

“Game over,” the computerized voice speaks back to Niall as he loses his fourth round of Space Invaders.

In a moment of frustration, Niall furrows his eyebrows and kicks at the bulky arcade game. He is running out of coins and patience at this point.

Niall had been at the arcade for a few hours now. 

It was summer and the air was sweltering outside and sleeping the day away had long since gotten boring. This was when he decided to start spending his days at the old school arcade in town.

Although the games were out-dated they were fun, the food was cheap and the prizes were just silly enough to be an actual incentive for Niall to try and win. 

He is determined to win that green blow-up alien, even if he has to squander away all of his lawn-mowing money. He'll do it.

Blasts of dings and jingles and alarms can be heard from every angle of the arcade. With every winning bell sound coming from a game, it drowns out the pop music playing on the over hanging speakers and the periodic PA voice wishing someone in the building a “Happy Birthday”.

It’s a surprisingly exciting place to be, even if Niall feels a little too old to be there at times.

Like when a girl, no older than six, huffed at him for hogging the skee ball machine or a ten year old boy followed Niall around for half the day just to poke fun at him for every game he lost.

Granted, Niall is only fifteen himself, he can’t help but feel petulantly out of place at times.

After finally gaining some luck while playing a few rounds of Mortal Combat, Niall feels that it’s time for his daily check of the prize wall before he heads home.

Making his way across the black and neon confetti carpet, Niall sets his jumbo cup of tickets onto the glass top counter and studies his options.

He realizes that he is still hundreds of tickets short of being able to buy that alien. 

_Damn_. Niall thinks to himself as he begins to shove his ticket cup into the drawstring pack he has on his back. It’d be a bit until he can redeem any sort of worthy prize.

“Hey there!” Someone jumps up from behind the counter exclaiming and consequently giving Niall a mini heart attack.

“Oh sorry, Mate. Didn’t mean to startle you there.” The boy says.

He so obviously works at the arcade with his customary vibrant orange collared shirt that is tucked into some black jeans. His pants are rolled up revealing a bit of ankle and he’s got on a pair of black and white checked vans. His shaggy brown hair is covered in an obnoxious fuzzy purple and zebra print prize top-hat, and he’s wearing about three different light-up prize necklaces. If that didn’t make it obvious that he was working the prize counter then his ‘Hi, My Name is _Louis_ ’ name tag certainly did.

Niall didn’t mean to take this Louis-person in so fully, but he was a bit shell shocked by how beautiful he found him. 

Niall slowly dropped the hand that was clutched to his chest back at his side. He now felt awkward and childish once again.

“It’s alright,”

Louis smiles at Niall and steps a little closer to the counter that separates them.

“Got a special prize in mind?” Louis asks and points back to the prize wall with his thumb, eyes not straying from Niall’s.

Niall clears his throat and quickly looks to the wall, scanning over what he sees. He only has one in mind, but he doesn’t want to tell Louis what is it. It’s dumb.

“Um, not really. Just looking.”

Louis opens his mouth to say something back when a herd of kids come rushing up to the counter.

Louis is distracted away by the group, allowing Niall to rush out of the building.

Niall quickly unlocks his chain from the bike rack and doesn’t return to the arcade for few days.

—

“You know… there’s a secret passage on this level that will help you unlock the final battle,” Someone says from behind Niall.

It had been three days until he built up the nerve to come back to the arcade. Niall had spent those days cleaning out the rain gutters for his neighbor, Karen. It was significantly less fun.

Niall turned around to face the voice that had spoken and low and behold, it was Louis.

He was dressed more or less the same as the last time Niall saw him, but he wasn’t wearing any of the gaudy prizes this time around.

Niall took a steadying breath and turned back to face the slanted screen. 

“How do you get to it?”

Louis saddled up next to Niall at the console and placed his hand over Niall’s on the joystick.

At this point Niall didn’t know what to do. Every fiber of his being wanted to pull his hand out from under Louis’ and take a step to the side, but he also didn’t want to be too obvious. Niall had no idea what was going on!

So he just stood still and allowed Louis to guide his character through the game.

When Louis reached the secret passage he had been talking about, he removed his hand from Niall’s and backed up a bit to talk to him.

“There you go. Now you’re so close to beating the game.” Louis said as he adjusted his fringe and stood back on one of his legs, causing his right hip to pop slightly. “And between you and me,” Louis fake whispers, leaning back into Niall a bit, “The ticket pay-out for winning this game is well worth it.” 

That made Niall blush and he doesn’t even know why. Probably because of how much attention Louis is giving him, rather than what he's actually saying.

“Thanks for the tip,”

Louis winked and gave a “No problem,” before he started to head in the direction of his workbench.

“Hey, wait.” Niall turned back around to find Louis a couple yards away, addressing him. “What’s your name?”

“Niall,”

“Sick, I'm Louis. I’ll give you a shout out on the PA later. For luck,” Louis said before he was off again.

When Niall returned to playing the game, his hands might have been shaking a bit.

—

The next few visits went on much the same.

Niall would come to the arcade and play his little heart out. Sometimes Louis would stop by and help him out or give him little tips on how to beat a particular game.

He would also send out ridiculous messages to Niall over the sound system.

“Happy 50th Lose today, Neil!” 

or 

“Good luck to our very own valued customer, The Niallanator… you’ll need it” 

or 

“Niall, I’m bored. Come entertain me”

It had gotten to the point where Niall wasn’t as nervous to be around Louis as he once had been. He also came to the realization that he now had something of crush on Louis.

Niall found that laughable because Louis was seventeen for christ’s sake. He was seventeen and had a job and probably had zero interest in Niall.

Niall was just some loser fifteen year old, almost sixteen okay, spending his summer vacation in an arcade.

But that doesn’t stop Niall from staring too long at Louis’ eye crinkles or from fixing his hair in the shop window before entering the arcade everyday or from blushing every time he manages to make Louis laugh.

He feels silly to be completely honest.

“Hey! I was gonna eat that!” Niall gripes when his pizza slice is lifted from his hands, mid bite.

He looks up to see Louis sliding into the booth across from him, his beloved pizza halfway shoved into Louis’ mouth.

“Harrin ehss kaaren, Nil” Louis speaks with his cheeks bulged out, the wrist of his unoccupied hand covering his full mouth.

“Ugh, what?” Niall fakes disgust at Louis’ table manners as Louis swallows down his pizza.

“I said sharing is caring, Niall,” 

“Yeah, except for when it concerns food,” Niall says but doesn’t make a grab for the pizza Louis is now taking normal sized bites out of, “Specifically my food.”

They’re sat in the small seated concession area that’s in the corner of the arcade. Only a few booths and tables make up the area and the “concessions” consist mostly of pizza, nachos, icee’s, but it’s cheap and greasy so Niall can’t complain.

The distinct electronic sound of someone loosing their last life on Ms. Pac Man can be heard as Louis speaks again.

“Oh.” Louis starts, lowering the half finished pizza from his face, “Sorry, Neil. I’m on break right now and I forgot my lunch at home. I didn’t think you’d mind.”

Louis looks uncertain for a moment until Niall claims “It’s alright, you can have it,” and delves into his bag of Cheetos. “Just this once.”

Louis’ shoulders relax and they both continue to eat and split Niall’s soda.

“So, how long have you worked here?” Niall asks sucking the pad of his orange dusted finger into his mouth.

Louis finishes a long pull of cola from the straw, his head tilting side to side in contemplation. “Started when school let out. This is just a summer job.”

“You don’t like working during the school year?”

“It’s not that, I just don’t have the time.” Louis tosses the pizza crust onto the now empty plate. “I audition for the school’s theatre production's every year and I usually get some sort of part, so I'm too busy. I don’t like having my plate too full, is all.”

“That makes sense,” Niall nods and balls up his empty crisps bag before picking up Louis’ discarded pizza crust. “You’re weak, by the way, for not eating the crust.” Niall fits the whole thing in his mouth, “’S the best part.”

Louis laughs and shakes his head in disagreement. His nose and shoulders scrunching up in unison.

“So then, how do you know how to beat all of these games if you just started working here?” Niall continues.

Louis’ fingers fiddle with his bottom lip for a few moments. An act that most definitely does not hold Niall’s attention for longer than necessary.

“Well… whenever my parents were going through their divorce I would come here just to get out of the house for a bit.” Louis purses his lips together before relaxing them and rolling his eyes at himself. “I guess I just got really good.”

“Oh, I’m sorry I asked.” Great. Niall’s gone and made their easy conversation turn awkward.

“Nah, don’t even worry about it,” Louis taps his loose fist to Niall’s knuckles. “I just spent a lot of time here and now it’s my safe place, I guess. Like a sacred haven or whatever.”

Niall nods along to Louis’ words, “Yeah, it seems like a really fun place to work.”

Louis smiles softly at Niall, tapping his fingers on the table top.

“It is.”

Niall can only hold Louis’ gaze for so long before he feels the rush of heat headed straight for his cheeks. He has to look away, but he swears he can see Louis’ smile widen out of his peripherals when he does.

Louis pulls out his phone to check the time and sees that his break is almost up.

“Alright, Nialler. I must go. Try not to miss me too much.” Louis gathers up all of the trash on their table and throws it in the nearest bin. “Same time tomorrow?” Louis asks as he walks past Niall, who is still sitting with his eyebrows now raised, ruffling his hair as he goes. “Lunch’ll be on me this time, promise.”

Niall turns around in his booth to watch Louis walk over to the prize counter to start working again. He quickly sits facing forward before Louis can look back at him.

Niall stares intently at his hands, wondering when his heart started to beat so fast.

—

Their lunch dates become a daily staple as well. 

Sometimes they’d buy food from the concession stand and sometimes they’d take turns packing a second lunch for each other. 

Niall would bring ham sandwiches and Little Debbie cakes then Louis would bring ziplock bags full of dry cereal and Pixie Stix. Niall would bring fruit cups and beef jerky then Louis would bring leftover stir-fry, and so on.

On Louis’ lunch breaks they would eat and then spend the rest of the time playing tic-tac-toe or hangman on napkins.

They would also talk a lot.

Niall told Louis about how his birthday was coming up at the end of the summer and Louis told Niall about how he wanted to be a drama teacher when he grew up.

Niall asked Louis to teach him how to skateboard sometime and Louis thought it was sick that Niall could play the guitar.

They talked about last night’s football games and recommended each other music to listen to.

Louis would doodle on Niall’s hand and Niall would try not to fall even harder for Louis.

—

One night, about a month later, Niall was getting ready to leave the arcade and head home.

It was a sunday night so Nickel Mania closed early, around dinner time.

After spending twenty minutes at the prize counter having a sticker fight with Louis, but really just trying to say his farewell’s, Niall went out to the bike rack.

He made it two storefronts before the chain on his bike sputtered and slinked off kilter.

 _No no no_. Niall internally pleaded with his bike as he slide off the seat and bent to examine the chain.

Well, luckily it didn’t snap, but he’d need a few things from his garage to fix it properly.

Just as Niall is getting ready to make the trek home with his broken bike, a black Xterra rolls up beside him, emerging from the parking lot behind the arcade.

“Y’alright, Nialler?”

He looked up to see Louis, his passenger window rolled down to address Niall.

Niall stood from his crouched position and made his way over to speak to Louis through the open window of his car.

“Yeah, yeah. All’s good.”

Louis scrunched his lips to the left, examining Niall’s face. Niall just smiled and adverted his eyes to the assortment of expired air fresheners hanging from Louis’ rearview mirror.

“Ya sure, ‘cause it looks to me like you’re having some bike trouble, Mate.”

Niall’s hand waves off Louis’ assessment, hands hanging onto the car as he leans back on his heals. “Nah. I mean, yes, my bike is a little… unrideable, but I don’t live far so…”

Louis is silent for a brief moment, before rolling his eyes and getting out of the car.

“What are you doing?” Niall asks as Louis opens up his spacious back trunk, then makes his way to the curb where Niall’s bike is setting.

Louis wordlessly, and quite effortlessly, lifts Niall’s bike into his trunk and latches the door back down.

“Get in,” Louis offers as he takes his place behind the wheel once again.

“Um,” Niall starts, rubbing his hand through the hair on the back of his head. 

“Niall, come on, get in. You just said you don’t live far and I have no problem giving you a lift. Let’s go.” Louis reaches across the center console to push open the passenger door.

Niall hesitates only slightly before climbing in and buckling up. “Yeah, okay. Thanks, Lou.”

When they’re both secure inside the car Louis speeds off, following Niall’s directions.

The sun is just starting to set, the sky casting the streets to a faded orange tint. The temperature is gradually dropping with the sinking of the sun, so they leave all the windows in the car rolled down. Air whooshing between the seats and blowing their hair into disarray.

Louis drives erratically, but with surprising precision. The speed and sharp turns make Niall’s stomach drop in excitement rather than fear.

The radio had been nearly drowned out by the wind, but when Louis recognizes the first chords of a rock song start to play, he quickly reaches for the dial to crank the volume up.

As soon as the music is blasting through the speakers, with a slight scratch, Niall realizes that he knows the song as well.

A broad and unstoppable smile stretches across his face. He looks to Louis as the guitar lead turns over to vocals, and Louis is unabashedly singing along. Niall can’t help but to join him, leaning into the console, fist bawled up to make a faux microphone.

_My heart’s in overdrive and you’re behind the steering wheel._

As the chorus begins Niall follows Louis’ lead and starts to obnoxiously head bang to the beat, arms flailing about to punch the air and sweep across their bodies for added drama.

_I wanna kiss you every minute, every hour, ever day._

Niall squeezes his eyes shut tightly and points to Louis during the ridiculously high-pitched parts, while Louis dangerously throws his body from side-to-side, one eye remaining on the road.

They pull up to a deserted stop light as the guitar solo begins to play. A glow of red tinges the inside of the car and Louis and Niall sloppily air-guitar along to the song.

Only when the song reaches it’s bridge does Louis start driving again. The intersection still empty, but the traffic light already pass green and now lit in yellow.

Louis’ hands drum on the steering wheel to the song’s backing kicker, in sync with Niall’s claps. 

_We’ll be rockin’ ’til the sun goes down._

The song goes on as Louis turns into Niall’s neighborhood, at the point of a finger. They’re only one street away when the song comes to it’s final dredge, instruments playing out prolonged notes. They’re both still dancing along, pretending to know how to play bass guitars and drum kits.

Niall thinks this is the most fun he’s had in a long time.

And if Niall decides to listen to a certain The Darkness song on repeat for the rest of the summer… well that’s his business.

—

"Really, Niall. What prize are you trying for?" 

Louis has been asking him this same question for weeks now.

"I told you, the glow in the dark dart board,” Niall states, pulling the trigger of a plastic blue gun to shoot at assassins.

Louis huffs and leans on Niall's back to watch him play Time Crisis, chin resting on his shoulder.

"But you're lying because I know you already have enough tickets for that."

"Maybe I just like playing the games,"

Niall feels teeth sink into his shoulder. It doesn't really hurt, but the shock of it makes him jump away from Louis. The gun slips from his hand and swings on its cord to bang into the front of the machine. With no shooting action, Niall's character promptly dies.

As a loud digital explosion can be heard, signifying Niall’s loss, he reaches a palm up to rub at his shoulder.

“Ugh, Lou! You made me lose!”

Louis just hip-checks Niall out of the way and picks up the discarded gun.

“Here, let me make it up to you,” Louis aims the plastic gun at the screen and restarts the game, stance broad for optimal shooting action. “I’m aces at high pressure games.”

Louis wins the game in record time and they’re both helping to shovel the spouting tickets into Niall’s overflowing cup when a voice resonates from behind them.

“Louis!” One of Louis’ supervisors, Greg, booms, “You better not be playing on the clock again.”

Louis immediately straightens and faces Greg with an overly sunny smile.

“Of course not, Sir. I was just helping out a customer in need, as is in my job description and all.”

“Mmmhm,” Greg looks on at Louis skeptically.

Niall finishes rolling all his tickets up so none will spill out of the container and stands to his full height as well.

“Why don’t you get back to the prize counter before the afternoon rush starts up, OK?” Greg sternly suggests.

“Great idea, Gregory. I was just headed there, in fact.”

Greg grumbles and rolls his eyes at Louis before walking to the offices near the entrance.

“Ah, Greg loves me,” Louis sighs and Niall follows him over to the prize counter.

“Nothing about that exchange was overly loving in my opinion,” Niall states as he tightens the drawstrings of his backpack.

Louis pulls out a roll of something from underneath the glass casing.

“Nah, he does. He just has a strange way of showing it,” Louis unsticks a small green smiley face sticker from the roll and pushes it onto the tip of Niall’s nose.

Niall laughs softly at the act and he’s pretty sure his face flushes with color, but he doesn’t try to remove the sticker.

“Greg just doesn’t like it when he has to reset the scoreboards because I filled up all the winning slots,” Louis shrugs and sticks a red smiley to his own name tag. “Whoops.”

“Legend,” Niall compliments as another smiley is being pressed to the apple of his right cheek.

“So, you’re really not going to tell me what prize your saving up for?” Louis asks as he absently tidies a display of silly bands. He looks up at Niall through his wisps of thick eyelashes. How is that even fair? “I could probably ‘misread’ the ticket counter if you needed me to.”

Niall just sighs at the suggestion. The truth was… he had enough tickets for his alien. Niall had more than enough tickets. He just doesn’t want to redeem his stupid prize and then have Louis wandering why he keeps coming back to the arcade after that. 

Niall doesn’t want Louis to know that he is actually the reason Niall keeps coming back, not the prizes.

But maybe it was time Niall collected his prize and just left Louis alone. He would consider them friends at this point, but Niall ever having a chance at being with Louis was ridiculous in his own mind. Maybe it was time to let his summer fantasy be done with. 

The summer was almost over anyway.

“Okay,” Niall relents. “Let’s see if I’ve got enough.”

Louis cheers and starts running Niall’s hefty collection of tickets through the counter.

“Twelve hundred,” Louis whistles, impressed. “Quite the accomplish, Neil. So what’ll it be?”

Niall nods his head to the corner of the wall where the row of blown up aliens are hung.

“One of them aliens,”

Louis gets the hook and brings down a translucently green alien. He hugs it to his chest as he walks back over to the counter where Niall is hunched over.

“I had a feeling this is what you were going for,” Louis admits.

Niall raises his eyebrows in surprise.

“Really? Why?”

“Just a guess,” Louis passes the alien over the counter. “I have one of the purple ones at home. They’re sick aren’t they?”

“Yeah,” Niall trails off, tucking the alien sideways under his arm.

 _I guess that’s it_ Niall thinks to himself. _Time to let go_.

“So, I was thinking-“ Louis starts only to be cut off by Niall before he can even finish his sentence.

“I have to go,”

Louis furrows his brows at the abrupt interruption. He watches Niall begin to hastily pile all of his belongings into his backpack.

“Wait,” Louis reaches out to stop Niall with a hand to his wrist. “I was going to ask if you wanted to-“

“Thanks for all the help, Lou,” Niall pulls at the strings to close his bag, not meeting Louis’ eyes. “I’ll see you… um, later.”

Then Niall is scurrying away from the counter and out the door. Louis watching his retreating back helplessly.

—

It’s been a few days since Niall last saw Louis and he can’t even deny that he misses the older boy greatly.

He’s been binge watching Netflix and eating all the contents of his pantry and doing not much else besides that. He needs to get out of the house though. That much is for sure.

So, Niall hops on his bike and rides down to the local bookstore. It’s the last weekend until school starts so he figures he should probably start his summer reading assignment, and that starts with actually having a copy of the book he needs to read.

Niall is wandering through the aisles looking for the author he has written messily onto the palm of his hand. He’s scanning the book spines when his eyes catch those of someone else’s on the other side of the shelf he’s currently stood at.

Louis.

For half a second Niall panics and considers ducking to the ground, out of sight, but that would be a ridiculous thing to do. Especially since Louis is already looking right back at him through the shelf of books.

They stare at each other for a few moments and then Louis is slowly making his way to the end of his aisle, Niall trailing right along, not daring to break eye contact even once.

They reach the end at the same time and step into full view of each other. 

It’s the first time they’ve seen each other since Niall made a fool of himself at the arcade and its… really nice to be seeing Louis again. Niall can admit to that.

“Hi,” Louis greets. He’s holding a small stack of novels with one hand and fixing his fringe nervously with the other.

“Hi,” Niall replies softly. It’s the first time he’s seen Louis out of his uniform and Niall can’t help but to think Louis looks unbelievably cute in his oversized t-shirt. The hem ending well past his thighs and billowing across his tummy as he shift from foot to foot.

“Haven’t seen you at the arcade in a few days,”

“Yeah…”

Theres another awkward silence between them that Niall thinks has no business being present in his and Louis’ conversation. They don’t do awkward silences. They have fun and easy conversation and Niall’s ruined it with his stupid crush.

“Have I done something to upset you, Niall?” Louis finally asks. His head is tilted in thought and he’s looking at Niall earnestly, as if he’s worried that this space between them is at the hand of his own doing.

“No!” Niall assures. He can’t have Louis thinking that this is his fault. He has to fess up. “No, of course not, Louis. This is all my fault and I’m really sorry.”

“What do you mean? Sorry for what?”

Niall looks down at his shuffling shoes and takes a deep breath before replying, “I… I sort of have a massive crush on you and… I’ve gone and made it all weird between us. So, for that, I’m sorry.”

After some moments, Niall can’t bear the silence his confession has invoked. He looks up to Louis and he’s surprised by what he’s met with.

Louis is now smirking at him.

“Niall, you idiot.” Louis says. He sets his stack of books on the closest shelf and then steps closer into Niall’s space.

“It doesn’t have to be weird,” Niall relents, “We can just pretend I never said anything and-“

Suddenly, Niall feels a slick warmth on his mouth. His eyes are widened to ridiculous saucer sizes and he’s watching Louis kiss him promptly on the lips.

The kiss is over soon after and Louis is pulling away to look Niall directly in his shocked eyes.

“I have been flirting with you all summer, Neil” Louis says, his hands cupping Niall’s face. When Niall furrows his eyebrows, Louis squishes Niall’s face together, distorting his features even further and forcing his cheeks and mouth to puff out comically. “Don’t give me that confused look, Niall Horan. I was throwing all my best moves at you. In fact I’m a bit offended you never noticed.”

“I didn’t,” Niall tries to say, but his cheeks are still being squeezed together so his words are oddly muffled.

“Well then let me spell it out for you,” Louis leans in to rub his nose against Niall’s. He then relaxes his hands, but doesn’t seem too keen on letting Niall go just yet. “I sort of have a massive crush on you too.”

“Really?” 

Niall can’t help but ask, he really can’t. This is so unbelievable to him. Louis, the boy, no wait… the older boy, he’s been pining over all summer is telling Niall he likes him back? Niall is sufficiently stunned.

“Really.” Louis assures. “Now shut up and let me kiss you please.”

As Louis pulls Niall in again to apply more deliciously sweet kisses to his lips, Niall realizes just how much he’s won at life. That’s it, it’s game over.

**Author's Note:**

> So, I'm currently editing a different nouis au I've been writing and tbh it's pretty much 29k of sadness and I just wanted to write something a little more... happy, so here ya go!
> 
> The song Niall and Louis are dancing to in the car is [I Believe in a Thing Called Love by The Darkness](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZtcz4WVBGg) and even though it's Louis and Zayn taking about it in [this interview](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCzNyLF1i10&t=5m35s), I still assert that it's for sure a nouis song ; )


End file.
